18 Books That Will Change Your Life In 2018

I love the excitement around a new year. People buy overpriced calendars, commit to ambitious diets including lots of kale juice, and every treadmill in the gym is taken. New year, new you, right?

Or maybe New Year’s resolutions aren’t your thing seeing as 80 percent of people fail to stick to their goal longer than six weeks. Why?

A recent study showed that the only thing that mattered in whether a person continued with their resolutions was enjoyment. Meaning, the reward of flat abs is not enough to keep you jogging. You have to like jogging.

With that logic in mind, I considered all the books I want to read that educate both intellectually and emotionally. Already 2018 is shaping up to be a spectacular one for new books, so please indulge in this glorious list that will change your life – and provide you with fodder for a New Year’s resolution you will enjoy keeping.

1. You Do You: How to Be Who You Are and Use What You’ve Got to Get What You Want by Sarah Knight

From the best-selling guides The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck and Get Your Sh*t Together comes this third installment about being yourself. Sounds easy, right? Then why are so many of us still letting other people tell us what to do or how to do it? As if you couldn’t tell by her titles, Sarah Knight writes straight talk giving you the confidence to find your own happiness.

2. The Clothes Make the Girl (Look Fat?): Adventures and Agonies in Fashion by Brittany Gibbons

From Brittany Gibbons, blogger, TED Talker, and body image advocate, comes her satirical follow up to Fat Girl Walking. All over social media, shopping malls, and ads female fashion is everywhere. It’s not quiet either. Every image seems to claim there’s only a handful of body types that are acceptable, but Brittany’s book is about finding the right fashion, ignoring the number on the tag, but still finding the best fit and your confidence at the same time.

3. My Friend Fear by Meera Lee Patel

Meera Lee Patel mixes simple stories, inspiration, insights, and illustrations in her works. From her first best-selling book Start Where You Are, comes her journey to make peace with her fears. Through watercolors and reflective questions, this book is about discovering your potential in a not so cliche way.

4. The Largesse of the Sea Maiden: Stories by Denis Johnson

National Book Award winner, Pulitzer finalist, best-selling author of Jesus’ Son: Stories, this is Denis Johnson’s long awaited collection of prose. It was finished just shortly before his death, but will no doubt live on as a reminder of what literature will miss from his passing.

5. The Hazel Wood: A Novel by Melissa Albert

For fantasy lovers, this novel is expected to be one of the best of 2018. If you are nervous about the genre, this is a safe bet to add to your reading list. This is the story of seventeen-year-old Alice whose grandmother, author of a cultish fantasy series, dies alone on her estate called the Hazel Wood, and Alice’s mother who is stolen away but leaves behind one last message to her daughter: stay away from the Hazel Wood. And yet, it’s Alice’s only way forward.

6. Brave by Rose McGowan

A Hollywood memoir described as a way to escape a cult. Follow Rose McGowan’s rise to stardom, her struggles with the pressure of sexualization constantly being on display, and her realization of the sexism embedded in the entertainment world. In the wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, this is a story from a strong voice within industry.

7. This Will Be My Undoing: Living at the Intersection of Black, Female, and Feminist in (White) America by Morgan Jerkins

She’s only in her twenties, but Morgan Jerkins has already established herself as a strong voice and fierce critic. After writing for a variety of magazines, her first collection of essays sets out ambitiously to tackle this question: what does it mean to be a black woman today? Expect this to be required reading for every person on the planet.

8. Feel Free: Essays by Zadie Smith

One of the best loved and popular writers from the moment she burst through with fiction works like White Teeth, returns with wise essays exploring the questions we are asking today. What is social media all about? What do we tell our granddaughters about climate change? Why do we love libraries? As she argues out a variety of topics, the reader re-engages with the world and life.

9. An American Marriage: A Novel by Tayari Jones

The author of Silver Sparrow returns with a novel about regret, race, love, loyalty, and the hope of moving forward to a better future. Two newlyweds are ripped apart by circumstances out of their control. Roy is arrested and sentenced to twelve years for a crime his wife Celestial is convinced he didn’t commit, but she finds comfort in the company of her husband’s best man. After five years, Roy’s conviction is suddenly overturned and he returns to his wife, but now one plus one equals three.

10. Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot

The burden of memoir is honesty and vulnerability. Terese Marie Mailhot meets it front on in her poetic writing about coming of age on the Seabird Indian Reservation in the Pacific Northwest. After surviving a dysfunctional upbringing, Terese is in the hospital with a double diagnosis of post traumatic stress disorder and bipolar disorder. She is given a notebook and she begins to write a way out of her trauma. This is that notebook.

11. Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of the Silicon Valley by Emily Chang

Silicon Valley is the tech crazy hub of the world, where anyone can make a difference – except if you’re a woman. In this exposé, journalist Emily Chang unearths the toxic workplaces, sexual harassment, and discrimination rife within the Valley. It’s time to break up the boys’ club, and Chang has several suggestions how.

12. Back Talk: Stories by Danielle Lazarin

For the short story lover or the reader still searching for relatable stories about women, pre-order now. Finally we have stories about complex women expressing their desires in a way previously taboo. It’s not a collection about women who hate, but women who are trying to make sense of their world. Danielle Lazarin is a new talent to watch.

13. Sunburn: A Novel by Laura Lippman

From best-selling thriller writer comes a psychological suspense novel about two people locked in a passionate game of cat and mouse, until someone dies. Was it an accident or part of a plan? Modern noir at its best with well crafted story telling. By definition, a page-turner.

14. I’ll Be Gone in the Dark: One Woman’s Obsessive Search for the Golden State Killer by Michelle McNamara

We aren’t entirely sure how true crime will change your life, but we also can’t stop reading it. The Golden State Killer is a decades old case where a serial murderer and rapist terrorized California for over a decade before eluding capture and disappearing. Three decades later, one journalist was obsessed and determined to unmask the murderer, but then she past away unable to finish her work. With the help of Michelle’s lead researcher her masterpiece is complete.

15. Tangerine by Christine Mangan

Already optioned for film by George Clooney’s Smokehouse Pictures with Scarlett Johansson to star, it’s an understatement to say this is the most anticipated debut novel of 2018. Set in Morocco with exotic charm, imagine an eerie thriller of two female friends mixed with doubt, obsession, and shock.

16. Where There’s Hope: Healing, Moving Forward, and Never Giving Up by Elizabeth Smart

The story of her kidnap as a young teen, held captive for nine months, and sexually abused every day is known across the world. Since her rescue, Elizabeth Smart has shown an incredible ability to move forward in her life. She published My Story in 2013 detailing that past part of her life, and now is following up with a book based of 21 interviews with people who suffered through grief or a range of trauma.

17. Wade in the Water: Poems by Tracy K. Smith

From United States Poet Laureate, Tracy K. Smith’s newest collection of poems ties our modern state and the country’s fraught founding history together. Through her unique voice and poetry, this is talking about race from a new lens and medium.

18. And Now We Have Everything: On Motherhood Before I Was Ready by Meaghan O’Connell

True, you aren’t ever really ready to fall pregnant, but when it’s a complete accident? Then what? In Meaghan’s case, she decided to keep the baby, but couldn’t find an honest, agenda-free resource to reckon with the incredible emotional impact of motherhood. Instead, she’s written it herself.